Recovery
by yayfornonsense
Summary: She is used to a world without color.
1. Chapter 1

This is written in three parts, with a prologue, the body, and an epilogue. Set directly after 2x04, _Honey_. Focuses on Gillian's recovery after that horrific afternoon. Reviews are appreciated.

Disclaimer: Don't own it.

* * *

_Prologue_

"Can I sleep in your spare bedroom tonight?"

She nods, tries to mask the relief she feels. There are rules to this game that is her life, and she always, always plays by them. But that doesn't stop her from needing him, needing to feel that his heart still pounds beneath her fingertips.

They don't say much, because there aren't many words to explain away the fear that claws its way between them. He accepts the mug of tea she hands him with a smile of thanks. This is easier, this semblance of normalcy. The truth of _what if _smolders and burns at the edges of their shared universe, closer than before. She realizes suddenly that she has started, already, to think that way. This day has become the anchor for everything else. It is the peak of the mountain and everything behind it and everything after it will forevermore be compared to it. _Before _and _after _have taken on new meaning.

Cal is reading her unashamedly, but for once she is too tired to care. She simply wants to be close to him, wants to feel the life that pulses through him, just to remind herself that he _absolutely _has not left her.

She raises her eyes from the mug in her hands to his face and suddenly everything shifts ninety degrees. She doesn't know who moved first, or if it was simply a mutual effort, but it doesn't matter since his lips are crashing onto hers. There is desperation in the way their bodies connect: his hands on her hips, pulling her impossibly closer, her teeth nipping, tugging, pulling at every part of him she can reach. She whimpers against his mouth and they stumble down the hallway to her bedroom, his body knocking into hers and hers into the door in a chain reaction.

"Gill…"

Her name on his lips sounds the way moonlight should, whispery soft and silver in the darkness. She revels in his warmth, in the feeling of her body trapped beneath his. She doesn't realize she is crying until he begins to kiss the tears away.

_There are images imprinted on the inside of her eyelids that she ignores. Flashes of memory, all the colors faded into blues and greens and grays, like a week-old bruise that has started to disappear but still hurts. Her father's hands, her mother's eyes, black and white, consequences and expectations and the knowledge that she will never, ever be enough…_

_Everyone lies. Everyone has secrets; she knows. This is something she witnesses every single day. It is one of the unspoken rules of the universe. She is no exception._

_That may be her biggest secret of all. _


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks so much to those who reviewed and please keep 'em coming! Enjoy; epilogue should hopefully be posted in a couple of days.

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_Recovery_

Moonlight streams through the window, spilling onto the rich carpet of the office. The rest of the room is buried in shadow, but even in the darkness it is obvious that this space belongs to an orderly, calm, well-organized individual. Books line the shelves neatly. The desk is free of clutter. The couch, the rug in the corner, the lamp on the side table: all are classy and elegant. The only thing seemingly out of place is the disheveled woman lying on the sofa.

Gillian Foster holds a glass of scotch in one hand. Her glazed eyes stare unseeing at a point opposite her on the wall. A hand comes up to run restlessly through her hair.

The case is over; the employees have all gone home. Cal has taken Emily out to dinner to celebrate. He had invited her along, and Emily had actually insisted, but Gillian had assured them that she had other plans. Ones that involved a romance novel and a bubble bath. Cal had smiled and rolled his eyes and kissed her cheek, bidding her goodnight.

She brushes her hand across her face at the memory.

The clock sings, signaling the arrival of midnight. Gillian sighs, stands, and goes to the coat closet in the corner of her office. Time to go home.

The parking lot is empty. No surprise there. Her car is a lonely silver beacon against the asphalt. The start of the engine is startlingly loud after the quiet of the office.

The roads between the Lightman Group and her home are virtually deserted and well lit, so she lets her thoughts drift as she drives. The case still lies over her like a heavy blanket. The little girl's screams still echo in her ears, along with the mother's heaving sobs.

_You promised you could help. You promised you'd find her in time._

Gillian swallows the tears away, feels them curl in the back of her throat uncomfortably.

_You promised._

Her house is too silent, but she doesn't mind the dark. She flicks one lamp in the living room on but retreats to the shadowed interior of her bedroom instead. She sighs, she sits, she kicks her shoes off into a corner. She curls up into a ball in the center of her bed.

But she doesn't cry.

_She is used to a world without color._

_There is black and there is white. There are expectations and consequences and she must absolutely never be disappointed. Her mother has grey eyes. Her father's blue eyes have turned black._

_She is not a little girl. She is a disappointment._

_Her father yells, her father stumbles about the sitting room, her father throws things that shatter against the wall._

_The bruise on her cheek is from falling down the stairs._

_She receives a piano for her birthday. Her father sits at the window. Her mother cries when she thinks no one is watching. _

_She plays the piano. Her father sits at the window._

_She is a disappointment._

_Black and white._

_Her father yells, her father stumbles about the sitting room, her father throws things that shatter against the wall. _

_Things that shatter, things that burn._

_Now the world has color._

_Oranges and reds and bright, cobalt blue fills her, burns her, bleeds into her. Her mother screams, screams, screams but her father says nothing. Her father says nothing and his eyes are still black._

_The color brands her, brushes her, licks at her as she runs. Runs back to her black and white world. _

_Black and white._

_Her father doesn't see her. Her father stands on the sidewalk and ignores her mother's cries. _

_Disappointment._

_She stands, just stands. Holds her mother's hand and watches, watches, watches. _

_Her piano burns to the ground._

Seventeen days.

Not that she's counting of course. At least on the surface, she is not trying to think about it at all. Her energies have instead been poured into making sure she ignores it, avoids him, doesn't fall apart. There are rules to this game that is her life and she always, always plays by them. It's a balancing act; he breaks a rule, she takes the penalty and cleans it up, cleans it up. He enjoys it, she knows, because this is _his _game, after all.

"Oi, Foster, you busy?" Cal himself looks harried, his body taught and his eyes bright and snappy. Gillian is reminded of a tightly coiled spring, just ready to snap.

"What is it?"

He takes her response as permission to enter. She accepts it – because with Cal, entering her office is like filling up her universe – and rolls her chair slightly away from her laptop, brushing her hair back in an attempt to seem carefree. Cal collapses into the chair opposite her, the desk a symbol for the metaphorical canyon that has separated them, as of late.

"How would you feel about playing Watson for the day?" He waggles his eyebrows playfully as she raises one of her own.

"And are you Sherlock in this hypothetical scenario? What are you up to, Cal?" She folds her arms across her chest, both to seem disapproving and to try to stem the burning ache that has begun to fill her chest. It hurts so much to even _look _at him right now.

"Nothing at all! I just thought you might want to have a little fun, seeing as how things have been so… stressed around here lately, yeah?"

Of course that is the understatement of the century, but she lets it slide in favor of the more important matter at hand: discovering what Cal's plan is and stopping it before it gets out of control.

"What did you have in mind?"

"You, me and a little Italian restaurant tonight, around eight."

She tilts her head, trying to find some hidden meaning in there. "Sorry, but you lost me. Where does the Holmes and Watson thing come into all of this?"

Cal shifts uncomfortably. "Well… a certain… ahem, _person _in my life whom I care about very much _might _be dining there tonight with another person whom I have wanted to strangle on certain occasions."

"You want to spy on Rick and Emily? Oh, Cal, that's despicable!"

"I resent that, Foster, I really do. I am simply doing my best to be the most caring father I can."

Gillian sniffs disdainfully and turns back to her laptop. "Thank you for the invitation, Cal, but I will not assist you in your attempts to sabotage your daughter's relationship."

"Not sabotage! Spy on!" Cal insists, dropping all pretenses. "I just don't want Em doing anything she's going to regret."

"We all have to make mistakes at some point, Cal," she responds calmly, eyes on her glowing computer screen, fingers flying across the keys.

Cal frowns and falls back into the chair, defeated. "Some help you are." Suddenly, he brightens. "I wonder if Loker could hack the security cameras of that place! Surely Italians aren't too hung up on technology, yeah? They're always too busy singing opera and shit."

He jumps up and saunters away, looking quite pleased with himself. Gillian sighs and follows his slight form until it disappears around the corner. Seventeen days.

Not that she's counting.

_She believes in God, but only sometimes._

_When the wind blows through the willow trees at night, whistling and whispering right outside her window, and the stars wink at the moon and the dog across the street barks six times: she believes in God then._

_But when her father comes home after eight o' clock, and he slams the bedroom door and doesn't eat any dinner, and her mother sobs into her pillow at eleven-thirty, she doesn't believe in anything at all._

_She is used to a world without color._

_Everything is black and white. There are expectations and consequences._

_Her mother takes her to Church. Her father sits at home and smokes cigarettes on the porch swing._

_She believes in God, but only sometimes._

_The preacher's wife smiles at her and says hello, asks how she is doing. She smiles back, but says nothing, because the smile feels like a big enough lie already._

She wakes up quickly: a sudden explosion of consciousness bursting into her hazy, violet, sleep-filled mind. It doesn't surprise her; for seventeen days she has awoken too suddenly and too soon, the sounds of a gunshot ringing in her ears, the smell of blood filling her nostrils, Cal's frightened eyes ingrained onto her retinas. She sits, wipes her sweaty palms onto the cool sheets, tries to ignore how violently she is shaking.

The path to her kitchen is familiar, as are the movements of putting the kettle on for tea. It is a habit Cal trained her in. She doesn't like tea – never has, never will – but she does like the warmth, the hiss of the kettle, the spicy smell filling her nostrils.

She shifts her weight, glances out the window, even though she can see nothing but her own tired reflection gleaming back at her. She's too tired too often. For once she longs to have a full night of sleep with no nightmares invading the darkness.

_We've done everything that you asked. Please. Just let him go._

She finds comfort in the fairy-ghosts that flit about her house: the hum of the refrigerator, the dripping of the bathroom sink, the chime of the clock on the mantle. They rub comfortably alongside the groaning and shifting of the house itself, like some great beast and her children.

She walks to the living room, flicks on a lamp, and powers up her laptop.

It's going to be another long night.

_She likes to keep secrets._

_Not the bad kind: her father comes home after eight o' clock, and he slams the bedroom door and doesn't eat any dinner, and her mother sobs into her pillow at eleven-thirty._

_But when Grace Penhallow whispers in gym class that she is going to kiss Robert Simmons on the playground at recess, she giggles back and promises not to tell a _soul_._

_Everything is black and white. Everything has two sides._

It's raining.

It's raining, which irks Cal to no end, because _of course _the one stormy day in _weeks _would just _have _to coincide with their visit to the dairy farm on the outskirts of Pennsylvania, where there will be absolutely _no _protection from the elements and he will get his sorry British ass thoroughly _soaked_.

She can practically see the italics floating through midair as she drives, Cal's hands gesticulating wildly; they have taken on an uncanny resemblance to the madly waving windshield wipers. She holds back a sigh and carefully changes lanes before answering.

"Please don't get so worked up; you're going to give yourself an ulcer. I have an umbrella in the backseat, you'll be fine."

"That umbrella is pink, Foster."

She is unable to catch the sigh that escapes her this time. "Well get wet if you want to, I don't care. But stop complaining. You know as well as I do that we have to get out there today; if we wait Cortez might as well book a flight to Thailand and fly first class."

"I bet Thailand doesn't have rain."

"He's a psychopath, Cal."

Cal folds his arms petulantly. "_Which _we already figured out. Why can't the FBI do this sort of thing; round up the criminals and all that, yeah?"

She slows as they pull onto the exit ramp, the rain still pounding against the roof loudly. "Well I think you _might _have shut that door pretty firmly when you refused to ever work with them again."

"The CIA never has these problems."

"No, of course not, everything's better in England, isn't it?"

"I knew you'd learn someday." He grins at her and punches her arm playfully. She returns the smile and it's almost _normal _again. Then his gaze alters just slightly (so little she can't even tell: a flick of the eyes, the mouth turned down slightly more, an eyebrow raised a ninetieth of an inch) and she is frozen, because they are _there _again: suspended between this day and _the _day and a thousand yesterdays ago. The air is heavy like taffy, sticky sweet and hot. She can't survive like this. When there is either _him _or nothing the fear is too paralyzing. So she retreats: smile gone, hands gripped (almost too) tightly to the steering wheel, eyes on the road.

This place hurts more, but breathing doesn't lie like he can.

_She writes her dreams down with a piece of chalk on the back corner of the school building, one dream for every brick. It rains the next afternoon and washes the little white marks away; they run like tears onto the discolored pavement. She is yet too young to recognize the irony of this._

She is, no surprise, awake when the phone rings.

The red numbers of the clock on her microwave bleed red into the darkness of her kitchen as she fumbles for the phone: 3:58 A.M. She curses under her breath as the cradle clatters to the ground, breaking the sweet silence of early morning. She dives for the receiver and answers breathlessly.

"Hello?"

"Hello, may I speak to Gillian Foster, please?"

"Speaking." Something is wrong; she can feel it in the air that has suddenly stiffened, the way her stomach has suddenly twisted, her heart pounding in her ears.

"Dr. Foster, my name is Dr. Albert Hollister. I'm calling on behalf of your partner, Dr. Cal Lightman. There's been an accident."

_She goes to Maine every summer. It is different; there are colors and the wind is bitingly cold even in August. Her parents don't fight and her father sits on the beach instead of at the window._

_In Maine, she is never a disappointment. _

"How bad?"

"There was some internal bleeding but we stopped it. He has some fractured ribs and a broken ankle. He's going to be quite sore for a while and he'll need physical therapy, but he should be fine."

She swallows, nods and then prepares herself to speak again, because _somewhere _along the way it became her duty to do this. "Do you know what caused it?"

_She almost dies in Maine._

_It was a rip tide, it was unexpected, and she was alone. Her parents had allowed her to go to the beach by herself that afternoon. It was a quiet neighborhood and they could see the beach from their rented cottage. It was safe. _

_(She prays that night to almost die more often: her father had held her like he would never let go.)_

"A DUI driver was going the wrong way on the road. Dr. Lightman was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Okay, thank you. I'll come… I should be there in about fifteen minutes."

"Thank _you_, Dr. Foster. He's lucky to have a friend like you."

And she wants to reply, to say that she's the lucky one, but somehow the words don't come. And he hangs up before she gets a chance to explain.

x

The hall is too quiet, she notices, to be comforting, though the attempts to create a soothing atmosphere are obvious. The yellow lamplight provides a soft glow; the walls are a reassuring, neutral shade of green, a television in the corner provides white noise. But it's not enough to cover the screaming thoughts that surround her.

_Get out! _They order. _Run; just go and don't look back_.

She's torn between submission and fighting against the wave of… dread? fear? that's come over her. And she's so, so tired. She doesn't want to do this now.

_Run and don't look back._

Instead she goes to the desk and asks the nurse for his room number.

Yeah, well. It's her duty, after all.

_A rip tide is something you can't see or feel until you're in it, until it's got you in its grasp and you're gasping for air and the water is rushing over you, filling your ears with white noise. It pulls you away from the shore and pushes you under, the salt burns your throat and nose and your toes can't touch the ground._

_It's drowning even when you know how to swim._

Cal looks too small in the bed, too fragile, but his face is peaceful as she sits down beside him.

She grabs his hand, because she needs to know that he's there, that he hasn't left her alone in the dark. His hand is so warm and solid and reassuring that she bursts into tears without quite knowing why. All she knows is that she's too exhausted to stop this, even if it is some kind of breakdown. One hand still in Cal's, she leans her head on the other and rests her elbow on the arm of the chair, her face turned away from him. Outside, the rain pounds, but here it is quiet except for the gentle beep of the hospital monitors and Cal's steady breathing. The rain drums on the window, the hospital monitors beep in time with Cal's pulse, and Gillian cries and cries and cries.

She's seven, he's the ocean, and this is what it feels like to be drowning.

_She keeps her sheet music hidden in the darkest corner of her closet, beneath a box of Lincoln Logs. No one talks about the piano. She swears her father's eyes turn red when he looks to that empty corner of the sitting room._

_(Things that shatter, things that burn…)_

_She would never have been a great musician, anyway._

Emily is all eyes and pale face.

"Is he gonna be okay?" She sounds seven years old again, and for a moment Gillian wishes someone were her to reassure both of them: two seven year old girls, lost at sea.

"He'll be fine." No such luck; instead, she must swim.

Emily pulls up a chair and grabs her father's hand. "Daddy? I'm right here. I love you." She sniffs audibly as Gillian blinks away the own prickling behind her eyes. She wishes she could rewind the clock, could say those things to him before this moment, when he's too pale and fragile in the hospital bed.

She wishes so many things today. When she was little, she used to wish upon the first star of evening. Too late for that now; the sun is beginning bleed onto the horizon. So instead she sends up a silent prayer to the dying moon. She's not sure if it counts, but it's better than nothing.

(I'm here. I love you.)

x

If possible, he watches her even more carefully.

Perhaps because he has nothing to distract him, lying in the hospital bed, or perhaps because he feels that she is somehow not quite the same. Whatever the reason, his eyes hardly leave her alone.

She, in turn, refuses to look at him at all.

She sits in the uncomfortable chair by his bed, reads magazines with all the eagerness of an avid gossip, smiles reassuringly and promises him that she's not going anywhere. But in truth, she wonders if they are really together anymore at all. She thinks that _that day _must have launched them into two separate universes and now they are struggling to communicate in a way the other will understand.

The silence, she discovers, is the best way.

_Her best friend is the rain._

_She sits on the porch and listens to it pattering against the roof, feels the mist of it brush her face in a gentle kiss. Her hair curls and dampens from the humidity, her socks get soaked from the puddles that collect on the sidewalk, but she doesn't care._

_The rain listens._

"Why?"

His voice is soft and sad and creeps under her skin, rolling across her uncomfortably.

"Why what?" She asks.

"Why are you acting this way, Gill?" Cal looks genuinely curious beneath the layers of hurt and confusion. She sighs and shifts in her chair, angling her body away from him unconsciously.

"I just… I can't anymore," she whispers finally.

"Why?" Cal persists. She can hear the frustration in his voice. She cannot blame him.

"Because…" Her voice trembles, "Because every time I look at you I see what could have happened. I see your eyes going blank and your heart stopping and me standing over you completely helpless. I see your blood on my hands and I smell it in my dreams and I swear I see your life flash before my eyes every time I look at you, Cal! I see myself regretting all the things I never got to say and growing old alone and bitter. And in some other universe, some lifetime ago, that must be what happened, Cal. Because somehow it has stretched across time and space and affected me and I can't live like that! I just want it to stop."

She cries as she talks and she wishes Cal would hold her but somehow she is grateful that he doesn't. He just sits and stares, his lips pressed together tightly, his eyes hooded and trapped beneath his heavy lids. She breathes, blinks the tears away, attempts to pull herself together. She feels naked beneath his unrelenting gaze.

"Well," Cal says finally, "Took you long enough to say so, darling."

_She is an excellent liar. _

_It is all a method of survival. There are expectations and consequences. What her father doesn't know won't hurt (her). Life is a game and she always, always plays by the rules. Lying isn't cheating._

_It's just playing smart._

The sky is grey and purple, signaling the approaching storm. Gillian sits on the park bench, the wind whipping her hair, her hands shoved deeply into the pockets of her coat.

"You okay, love?"

He looks so tired these days, she thinks as she stares up at him. The sock top she gave him for Christmas last year does nothing to hide the bags under his eyes, the lifelessness of his slight form.

"I should be asking you that," she replies finally.

"I'm just peachy," he assures her, collapsing onto the bench beside her.

They are quiet for a while, observing the few passerby and the way the wind plays with the tree branches. Then:

"I'm scared."

She turns to him, searches his face.

He looks so, so sad; sadder than she's ever seen him. "I know. But I'll help you."

She nods, one tear escaping her indifferent façade and slipping halfway down her cheek before she angrily brushes it away. Cal swallows, pulls her down to the ground with him. The dirt is hard and cold, but Cal's arms are very, very warm. She shuts her eyes and folds herself against him, listens to the pounding of his heart.

He holds her close as she crashes into reality.


	3. Chapter 3

Thanks to Dr. Callian for reviewing.

Okay, guys, what happened? I went from seven reviews for the prologue down to one review for the _actual _story... Did I seriously screw up? Did you all hate it that much? Even if you did, please, let me know! I can't improve if I don't know what my problem areas are. Don't worry, I can take it. ;) Lurkers, if you've been reading but not reviewing I'd love to hear what you thought of the story as a whole. Don't leave me hanging guys, please!

Okay, don't worry, the lecture's over. Enjoy the epilogue.

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_Epilogue_

_She was never a child, never a stereotypical child. Everything was black, but if it wasn't black it was white. Her mother's eyes were grey. Sometimes, she believed in God. She was a disappointment. There were expectations. There were consequences. Her piano burned to the ground. These are things she tries to forget._

_Tries, and fails._

Sometimes, she thinks she should mention it.

(Just three little words, it couldn't really be that difficult, could it?)

There are moments when she almost does.

Sitting in her office or his late at night, a bottle of scotch and the clink of glass all that separates them, she wants to tell him. Lying in bed in the quiet hours before dawn, (because she _still _doesn't sleep well; but all in good time) she longs to whisper it into the darkness. Sometimes he looks at her and she thinks _this is it_, but then he is gone before she has time to form a coherent sentence. She wonders if he does that on purpose. Maybe he doesn't love her. Maybe he never did.

Maybe, maybe.

It's all just a game, anyway. She knows the rules and she always, always plays by them. She makes choices and expects consequences and she has discovered that there is more gray in the world than she thought. She has secrets that burn in her throat and memories behind her eyelids that she ignores.

Forty-six days ago (Fine, she counts, okay?) her world shifted unalterably.

When she wakes up too suddenly and too soon, she repeats to herself the same things: he is alive, he is well, and he hasn't left her. His heart has not stopped. The only difference is now, she knows.

She feels it, beating beneath her fingertips.


End file.
